Diane Royal is a public health professional and trained anthropologist who joined GBA in early 2023. 

Long interested in impactful and innovative work, Diane served as a Community Organizer for AIDS Walk San Francisco before receiving an MS in Global Health Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Starting in 2012, Diane held positions with progressively increasing responsibilities within the Public Health Institute (PHI)—managing project portfolios in women’s health and community health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diane served as a program lead for a multi-state response initiative. This vast program worked to advance health equity by prioritizing community-based hiring, strengthening trust and deepening impact with culturally centered and primary language services—ultimately building a diverse, qualified public health workforce for the future. 

In tandem with Diane’s programmatic experiences in public health, she remains dedicated to academic research—most recently within a large-scale Canadian research initiative under which she is completing an MA in Anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Her research, positioned around rural communities and transport disadvantage, has been featured in scholarly journals, several digital stories, and other media including a TV-series and documentary radio program. Diane’s research experiences serve as a broader foundation that fuels her commitment to advancing health, well-being, and equity.
In her free time, Diane enjoys spending time with loved ones, reading, and traveling.